The Dover Police Department says its Enhanced Visibility Patrols are showing effectiveness.
The Enhanced Visibility Patrols program began earlier this year as a way to utilize school resource officers, who ordinarily have little to do during summer months.
The program places those extra officers in areas police have defined as crime hotspots by using complaint numbers for both the emergency and non-emergency lines.
Operations Division Commander Captain Kevin Streadwick says this idea is something that other police departments have used effectively.
“We in the police profession take good ideas across the entire profession and use it to try it our neighborhoods. Major cities have tried- what they call hotspot patrols, what we call our summer initiative- and, we're seeing double digit increases in improvements in certain target areas.” he said.
He adds the identification of “hotspots” is based on what he calls a “data based approach” to policing.
“Any time a complaint is called in, our dispatchers put it into the [system] depending on what they do, how the complaint works out- adjusted to shoplifting, trespassing, a welfare check. That all goes into the system. I took all that data, over a five-year period, and looked at the time, the date, and the peak times and dates.” he said.
Steadwick says since the program began, some hotspots are seeing a significant decrease in complaints compared to their average for this time of year.
He notes places like Target and Route 8’s Wawa location have seen an over 20% decrease in complaint calls.
The patrols are scheduled to continue through the end of August, ending with the start of the new school year.
